I would like to contribute my suggestions for various GUI and QoL (quality of life) improvements, because images speak a thousand words, I took to Photoshop to bash together some mockups.
If there are any major reworks to the relevant features, it would be awesome if the suggestions could be taken into consideration!
Mixer improvement:
Everyone works differently, and it would be pretty cool if you could "customize" the mixer in a simple way to add more individual control, to improve workflow.
Like so:
> which would add a knob: 
> that you can then link for quick tweaking: 
Patcher improvement:
It would be really cool to have the plugin chain seen in the Mixer available in Patcher, it would make doing linear processing much more easy.
Like so:
Suggestion on merging audio clips faster without applying any effects/routing
OSW wrote: ↑Tue Sep 20, 2022 4:49 pmSo I'm just wondering. Let's suppose we have this with WAV samples:
And we want to merge the two clips without applying any effects, would it (theoretically) be possible without rendering/recording by: copying the point sample data from the samples > creating a new file > pasting the sample data from the first sample> inserting the needed amount of silence > pasting the data from the second sample > saving the file as a new .WAV > swap the two separate audio clips in the playlist for the new one (and do that very quickly with an FL utility)
Suggestions made after two rounds of testing the 5th Beta:
OSW wrote: ↑Sat Aug 27, 2022 11:35 amWith testing of today, I have some more suggestions for the new browser:OSW wrote: ↑Fri Aug 26, 2022 4:41 pmHello all, just did a first round of testing with the Betas, was still using 20.8 before this.
First I want to say you guys are doing a nice job, I like the improvements made so far, but things are never perfect in life, so of course I will bother you with some suggestions.
I really like the information about the plugin here, but it should be resizeable, and when the window is made bigger, it should display plugin details like: category assigned in the VST, developer of the VST, 64 or 32 bit, latency, etc.
Weird behaviour with selecting + deleting clips from the pattern editor with the 'delete' key, it deletes the content in the playlist instead of deleting the selected clips in the clip selector:
Really nice, but for the clip background type I have selected (solid), it's a bit hard to see the blends/overlap, and switching it around all the time would be annoying, would it be possible to reduce the opacity of the clip a bit when it is overlapping?
I was really hoping for some playlist grouping improvements though > currently when you have a channel that is already in a group, it won't subgroup, but instead do this (incorrect) behaviour.
In the best care scenario we would be able to do subgrouping in the playlist, and I was really hoping this was coming, the grouping feature kind of feels unfinished now.
I also did some testing with some of the "newer" plugins, and I noticed many of them are NOT resizeable, for me this renders them instantly unusable.
With my eyesight, I simply cannot clearly see the controls on the plugin without having to move closer to the screen (which is pretty annoying with how I've mounted my screens)
5 of the 6 recent plugins are not resizeable, why?
1. Another tab in the browser that only shows Audio, you can currently only find your samples with the "All" tab, which is a bit messy, as it includes literally all FL folder aswell.
2. If you click "Starred" a 2nd row of tabs will show up, where you can filter your favourites for quick access. If people will start actively using the "favourite" feature, for both samples and plugins, it will quickly become messy.
A 2nd suggestion would be to add (optional!!) columns with metadata to the folder header in the browser, when it is scaled to max width:
This would give a bit more options to users that meticulously sort and add data to their samples.
Compared with the normal browser as it is currently:
Suggestion 24 Aug 2022: New clip type: MIDI Clip
Currently, when you have this:
And you do this:
The output remains the same, which makes sense with the current Pattern workflow. But for example: to audition the chords FL Keys is playing, with FLEX, you would have to select the pattern, cut the MIDI clip from FL Keys, paste the MIDI clip on FLEX, and do some renaming/recoloring the patterns to stay organized.
With the new Clip type, this could be much faster.
First, a new option when right-clicking on the pattern selector:
You will get a new clip with only one channel: MIDI Clip, in the channel settings, you can set the channel to preview through when in Pattern Mode playback:
If you have the instrument properly linked to the playlist with:
Playlist Track Right Click > Track mode > Instrument track > Plugin of choice
In "Song" mode, you will now be able to change playback from FL Keys to FLEX, or any plugin to any other plugin in the playlist, by simply moving the clip:
to: 
And if you want to layer the same MIDI clip over multiple instruments, where if you make a change to the clip, the change is made for all linked instruments you could simply do this:
Please note the kind of crude MIDI logo and the note icon on the Clip in the playlist to indicate this is a MIDI Clip and not a normal pattern.
Suggestion 24 Aug 2022: Control + Mouse scroll to "zoom in and out" horizontally in mixer
In the playlist, and in the piano roll, we can do Control + Scroll to zoom in or out horizontally, or Alt + Scroll to do vertical scrolling, very nice.
It would be awesome if this could also be implemented for the mixer, so you can make this:
Look like this:
(ofcourse without the horrible text scaling
)Suggestion 1: Improved sample preview and import
A "preview sampler" loads the sample the moment it is clicked, and plays it. The user can play/pause the sample preview, or loop it. The small white line indicates the current playback position, and the user can move this position by clicking anywhere on the waveform. A loop can be set by double click, and holding + dragging on the second click, if there is no loop region set and the loop button is on, the sampler loops the whole sample.
- The waveform element is taken from the title bar of the FL Studio GUI, I personally think it is a bit misplaced there, as you have to look up very far, from the samples to the title bar, to see the waveform, having it closer to the actual sample could save eyestrain.
If the small dropdown caret is pressed, additional sampler options are shown. Consider it as a normal, default FL Studio sampler, that is hidden from the Channel Rack.
- Here the inner workings of the default sampler become available, where the user can pan, pitch, stretch, tweak volume, and assign a mixer track the sample should be previewed through.
If the small wrench icon is pressed, even more sampler settings appear.
- Additional settings are shown, perhaps even the envelope editor could fit, but it would be tight!
Lastly, if the "Import" button is clicked, a dialog option should appear, asking the user if:
- The sample should be imported to the Channel Rack as a Sampler Channel, or the sample should be imported on the Playlist at the position of the playhead marker.
- Sampler settings should be copied from the preview sampler
- The preview sampler settings should be reset to default, or a specific preset, after import.
**oversight**
- There should of course, be an easy to find button, that resets the preview sampler, without having to import anything
Suggestion 2: Improved mixer equalizer + filter options
A "bare-bones" version of Fruity's parametric EQ2 replaces the current per-track equalizers, with some pre-planned limitations to increase ease of use and workflow.
- All the controls present in the current version, only moving around and resizing some stuff, with the default setting matching the current one: lowshelf / mid-bell / highshelf
- New are: the "power button" toggle to completely bypass the EQ and analyzer, in the top-left corner of the fft, the 3 nodes shown in the fft to indicate you can move them, and the 3 toggle buttons to enable/disable various filters quickly.
- When either or both of the lowpass / highpass toggles have been enabled, the bandpass toggle becomes unavailable :> red, the normal midrange bell settings are still tweakable though.
- This will allow users to quickly roll off some lows and highs, while still boosting or cutting a specific problem area.
- If the bandpass is toggled, the other two filters/bells are disabled, and you have a single pole bandpass, ready for automation, in just 1 click.
- If the user needs more control over the filter/shelf/bell shape, this should be available, by right-clicking on one of the nodes.
**oversight / nice to have**- And of course for the people that don't like "new stuff", a setting in the mixer to enable the legacy EQ.
- it would be nice to have an icon alongside the "power button" to freeze the fft
- there should of course also be a dry/wet mix knob somewhere
Suggestion 3: Optional mid/side metering
The user can enable/disable midside metering for any track, at a per track basis
- Self explanatory toggle option when right-clicking on a mixer track, or when having multiple tracks selected and right clicking.
- The meters change, and the single centered meter shows the mid-channel, and the blue outer meters show the sides.
- The single track would have to be around 25% wider to accomodate the extra space for the meters.